Current market conditions dictate that chicken growers raise broilers for 26 to 45 days and then sell them. As a consequence, chicken farmers are in need of a system which they can use, at approximately one month apart intervals and under any weather conditions, to deodorize and kill the pathogens in used chicken litter so that the individual farmer can accommodate a succession of flocks, in the same chicken house, with the same bedding material. Moreover, because the farmers work on small profit margins, they must, in preparation for growing the next batch of birds, clean up the used chicken litter, if it is to serve once again as bedding, in as short a time period as possible.
Constituents of used chicken litter include both ammonia (the main source of its pungent odor) and pathogens, byproducts of urine and feces, respectively, which the growing chickens discharge as waste from their bodies and deposit onto the litter at their feet. Environmental contaminants such as these, if not checked, can build up in chicken houses to levels which not only adversely affect the health of the farmers but also allow diseases to be transmitted from one flock to the next. In an attempt to protect both humans and birds alike, Federal and state regulators have placed certain limits on the concentrations of environmental contaminants.
Complicating the cleanup of chicken litter is the well-known fact that pathogens reproduce in moist litter; and to stop this reproductive process, the litter needs to be dried sufficiently to reduce its moisture content to less than 50 percent. Not surprisingly, the individual operator tasked with cleaning up chicken litter is the one who must determine, on the basis of the actual wetness of the caked litter, how best to use whatever equipment is available to kill the pathogens. For example, in its catalog entitled, “Poultry Equipment: Turning Waste Into Profit”, the manufacturer of the Priefert® Litter Saver, a prior art machine which, during use, lifts up hard-caked chicken litter and simultaneously pulverizes it, leaves such “details” to the operator's discretion: “Recommended 3 passes per house, 8 hours apart depending on temperature, humidity and wetness of the cake.”